Good Tuesday evening to everyone, weather-wise it was a very nice day across western North Carolina with temperatures rebounding today into the lower 50’s across the Foothills and Western Piedmont.
The first of two features from an active southern jet stream will impact the Southeast US. the first shortwave will quickly move moisture across the southland on Wednesday night with a second, more significant feature coming in Saturday.
It appears that the feature on Wednesday night should remain far enough to our south to prevent moisture from pushing in from the southwest. The mountains may see a few flurries due to a push of colder air moving in.
That reinforcing shot of cold sets the stage for Saturday where a moisture-laden system looks to move in. A 1032 mb high pressure will slide by to our north by Friday morning providing a fresh airmass with cold air while our storm system begins to gather steam over Texas.
By late Friday night and early Saturday morning, the moisture from this next system will start to override the cold air that is in place. However the high pressure to our north remains transient and moves off the East Coast. The end result is a classic in-situ CAD event for the Blue Ridge escarpment.
It appears the cold air and moisture will overlap for a few hours leading to the potential of some light frozen precipitation, mainly in the form of freezing rain/sleet. This would begin in the pre-daylight hours of Saturday and lasting to just prior to noon. (4 – 10 a.m.) As it common with these events the immediate escarpment holds the best chance of seeing accumulating frozen precip before it turns to a cold rain by afternoon.
A look at the map below shows where areas circled in the blue could be at or just below 32 degrees when this all begins pre-daybreak Saturday. In the mountains it could be in the upper 20’s.
At this time we are not looking at a major icing event but that is subject to change as we get closer. We will post another blog tomorrow afternoon or evening with the latest. One thing is for sure, Saturday will be a nasty day in terms of it being rainy and cold temps will struggle to reach the mid 30’s along and north of I-40.
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